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“Black Sails” recap (2.08): Every breath you take, every move you make

Previously on Black Sails, Eleanor and Flint gathered some allies and set out on a goal to make Nassau a self-governing island, Max has big plans (including getting the Urca gold for herself) and needs Anne Bonny to help her, and Eleanor stole Abigail from Vane and left him to die at the hands of his own crew.

Abigail wakes up from a nightmare and finds herself being comforted by Mrs. Barlow, and while she’s still on a ship like she was in her dream, the people around her are more man than monster. She writes in her diary that these pirates have been kind to her, even giving her writing materials, which help her convince herself that these men are just gentle sailors tasked with taking her home. But she knows this is just an illusion.

She wonders if they’re behaving for Flint’s sake, and wonders what would happen if he decided to let his monsters loose. Flint comes in and she promptly closes her journal and scurries away. Flint sits down with Mrs. Barlow and discuss Abigail, about how she’s a grown woman. Miranda hadn’t really notice how many years had passed while she was alone in that house, and how much they’ve all changed. They both still recognize each other despite the changes, but they wonder: Will Peter recognize them?

At the brothel, Featherstone storms past Idelle and bangs on Max’s office door. He starts shouting about how nervous he is, lying to his men about why they’re emptying out their ship, and also he has other concerns like where will they even put the gold when they get it back to Nassau? Max tells him to calm the eff down and just trust her. She’s come too far, lost too much, to turn back now. She sends him away.

Jack is still pouting so Max asks if he’s mad because Anne left or because Max helped her leave, and Jack says it’s neither. It’s just that he thought he knew Anne, truly knew her, and now he doesn’t, and he’s not sure if something changed or if he never really knew her in the first place. And while he probably misses her, his stalwart companion, he says maybe it’s for the best that she left.

Downstairs, a pretty woman is watching everyone in the Inn until something sends her straight to the butcher. She tells the butcher to pass a message to the woman of the house, and it’s Mrs. Mapleton, the old madame of the brothel. The one Max ousted. Mapleton pays her for intel about Featherstone meeting with Jack and Max. The woman asks who is even giving her all this money for information, but Mapleton pays her extra to stop asking questions.

Eleanor is in her office ending a meeting with a gentleman who tells her that there has been no news from the fort, meaning Vane’s men are either plotting something or choosing a new captain. After he leaves, Mrs. Mapleton comes in and passes on the news she learned; she says when Eleanor first employed her to keep eyes and ears out on the brothel, that Eleanor was overestimating Max, blinded by love. But now Mrs. Mapleton knows Eleanor had good reason to be wary, because something is, in fact, afoot.

Mrs. Mapleton tells Eleanor that the story is that Charlotte and Logan ran off to Providence together, but Mapleton doesn’t believe it for a second, because the girl had asked her old madame to hold onto her life savings for her, and never came back to retrieve it. So two people who almost definitely knew the whereabouts of the Urca gold are mysteriously gone, and now everyone on Flint’s crew thinks the gold is back in Spain? Seems shady. Eleanor is like, “So you mean to tell me, Max somehow managed to murder two people and convince a whole slew of pirates that an actual fortune was missing?” Mapleton knows it sounds insane but Jack Rackham’s ship is being emptied onto the beach as they speak. Mapleton thinks Max and her crew are going to get the gold to themselves, and if they have the gold, Eleanor can kiss her dreams of a self-governed Nassau goodbye. Mrs. Mapleton doesn’t want that, she wants what Eleanor wants, and therefore wants Eleanor to stop Max.

On Flint’s ship, Silver is telling a story with flourish and fervor, and Mr. Scott tells Billy that if Silver ever realizes the power he wields, the power of a talented storyteller, that they’re all in trouble. After the story, one of Silver’s watchmen is giggling in the corner and Silver gives them the ol’ what for, telling them they need to up their poker face game or they’re going to ruin everything.

Below deck, Abigail asks about Billy, who seems a little less rough around the edges compared to his shipmates, and Flint tells Abigail a story about how a young Billy was kidnapped as a child, and when Flint and his crew saved him, he killed his captors and couldn’t go home again and face his parents. I don’t actually know what the point of telling Abigail that story was except to scare her away from trusting anyone, but I’m sure it will be relevant again someday.

That night, one of Silver’s watchmen kills the other by sabotaging a rope he was to climb on because he was the worse of the two in the poker-face region. Silver is mildly horrified because that’s 1000% not what he meant when he told him to keep his friend in line but I guess that’s one less person to split the gold with?

In Max’s office, Featherstone is trying to think of a plan for the gold once they get it back to the island, but his lack of faith in the plan is boring Max nearly to tears. Jack muses about how letting Eleanor in was Vane’s downfall and the mention of her ex-lover’s name is the only thing that has made Max’s face make an expression all day.

Speaking of those wayward pirates, Jack has an idea: What if they store their coins in the fort? He decides to go ask them if they can do that, and Max sends Featherstone with him to lessen his chances of getting killed, though she doesn’t look like she’d particularly care either way.

In her own office, Eleanor is being given advice on what to do, but Eleanor points out that what he’s really telling her is that she has to kill everyone who knows about the gold; Jack, his entire crew…Max. The mere thought of it makes her sick.

The man points out that she’s slain entire crews with the flick of her tongue before, and she says she did what she had to do but she didn’t enjoy it, and refuses to be defined by any one decision she made. She’s not going to go queen of hearts on this island and start ordering heads be cut off all willy nilly.

On Flint’s ship, Abigail starts to see the real humanity in the pirates, not just the act they put on for her benefit. She sees them lay one of their brothers down to rest, she sees the true pain in their eyes, and she realizes that they’re not monsters, just men living in fear of their own monsters. Monsters like her father. This moves her to pull Flint and Mrs. Barlow into a room and tell them about a story her father wrote to her once about the ship called the Marie Elaine, a ship on which a very well-hidden Alfred Hamilton was sought out and violently slain by a pirate named Flint. It was dark and awful and seemingly unnecessary, since no one knew about the affair Flint had with Thomas Hamilton, nor how horrible Alfred was to his son and his son’s boyfriend because of it, and it spawned Peter’s hatred of all piracy, and especially his mark on Flint’s head. Abigail sees now that Flint isn’t the monster from these stories, and begs him to drop her in Charlestown and skedaddle.

They approach Ashe’s men in rowboats and Flint tries to make Barlow stay but she feels guilty, because she told Flint where Hamilton was, so she’s also to blame for his slaying. She’s come this far with him, she’s not about to turn back now. The men in rowboats call out for Captain Vane, saying they’ve met his demands, but Flint says he’s not Vane and doesn’t have any demands, but he does have Abigail, and a request: an audience with Lord Ashe.

On the way into town, the men who were leading them start beating the crap out of Flint since they were under instruction to kill Vane and don’t see why the same rule should not apply, but Abigail uses her authority to stand up for her new friends, saying if they are harmed, her father will surely hear about it.

Abigail is reunited with her father, and when he comes out to greet Fling and Mrs. Barlow, while he is hesitant for a moment, he must have Abigail’s stories of being saved in protected in his ear, because he welcomes them almost warmly.

On Nassau, Jack strolls up to the fort and knocks on the door, musing about how Vane’s downfall was caused by someone he once heard referred to as Lady Honeypot, but soon realizes that it’s suspiciously quiet inside and there are vultures flying overhead. He gets some more men to help him bust down the door, and find it empty but for debris and a dead man strapped to a makeshift crucifix. Eleanor runs down to see who it is, likely expecting it to be Vane, and is horrified to find that it is her father who hang there, dead. To his chest is pinned a letter from Vane, warning her that he had prepared for this moment, and he’s out wreaking havoc with his men, and then he shall return.

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